More Than Meets the Eye
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: He feels bad for her, getting stood up in such a nice dress. [Kurt and Oscar meet.]
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N** : Written for a prompt I received on tumblr: "Kurt and Oscar meet, and Kurt realizes for the first time that Jane might have a life outside the FBI." I had a lot of fun imagining this AU, as I was **so** disappointed we never got to see these two dummies actually meet on the show. Talk about wasted opportunities, it would've been crazy awkward fun. Please enjoy this take on it! :)_

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Jane wishes Kurt and Edgar would just leave. She knows they aren't lingering any longer than usual in the locker room after a case, but they are _lingering_ nonetheless, and she wants them to go so she can dress in peace. Usually she wouldn't blink at getting undressed in front of either of them—after all, they change in this locker room together every day, and besides, it isn't like the two of them haven't been spending the last eight or so months pouring over naked pictures of her. But today, for once, she wants privacy in which to change.

Finally, she gets it: Reade and Kurt say goodbye, and the door shuts behind them, and she's alone in the empty locker room. Jane closes her eyes, sucking in a calming breath of relief. This entire day, she's been waiting for this moment, waiting to be done with work so she can change and leave. She glances over her shoulder as she spins the combination to open her locker—really, her own paranoia is bothering _her_ at this point, what does she have to be embarrassed about?—but she is relieved nonetheless to see that there's no one else in the room. All the other agents left before them (not a surprise, given how late they stay for some tattoo cases), and the rest of the team had already left. She slides open the lock, removes it, and then yanks her locker open.

The dress is still there in its hanging bag, as pristine and untouched as it had been when she'd left it there this morning. Even looking at it brings a smile to her face, and she reaches out carefully to take it off its hook. If asked, she wouldn't be able to say how many times she's put it on. If she were put in interrogation, or drawn up in front of a court under oath, she'd have no way to explain just how much she loves this dress.

It is magnificent—to her, there's no other word for it. It is a long, almost floor-length black dress, cinched tight at the waist with a wide ribbon, form-fitting in the torso, and loose and flowing at the bottom. It is one-shouldered, and as she unzips the bag and starts to pull the dress out, she lets her fingertips linger along the translucent jewels that are sewn there, on the bit of fabric that will cover her left shoulder. The jewels are fake, of course, but she doesn't care. They still sparkle in the flourescent lights of the locker room and, she knows, from trying it on endlessly at home in the middle of the night, that they sparkle in low light too.

Quickly, she strips out of her work clothes, leaving them in a careless pile on the floor. She changes her bra—she specifically bought a strapless one for this, solid black, to match the dress—and then she starts to pull it on. Even though she's worn it at least a hundred times since she bought it last month, putting it on this time feels like the first time. She can feel the softness of the slip sewn in beneath the dress, sliding smoothly against her legs. She can feel the tickle of the train on her toes. She closes her eyes and smiles—so wide it hurts—and then she pulls up the zipper and ties the ribbon at the back.

The dress is one of a small handful of purchases she's made solely for herself since being formally brought into the FBI. It has been nearly nine months now that she's been working with them, and she has everything except a Quantico certification and the title of "agent": she has an ID badge, an employee number, a regular paycheck, budgeted sick days, vacation days, and—best of all, in her opinion—she has a rapport with the morning and evening guards in the front lobby. She has a place for herself here.

And she has a place for herself elsewhere, too.

She slips on her heels, checking her phone to make sure she still has time, and then she heads to the bay of mirrors in the back of the locker room. She stands in front of them for a still moment, relief coursing through her that today wasn't so bad; mostly it was office work, so neither is she sweaty from running around nor is her face bruised or her hair a mess from getting into fights. Good thing, too, because she hasn't quite figured out how to do anything creative with it. Mostly she just lets it lie.

Once, Patterson and Tasha put her through a beauty tutorial, and had tried to straighten it for a new look, but it had been a disaster. She'd looked even more like a ghost than usual, and none of the other "looks" they'd tried had had much success. But she did appreciate the other things they taught her: nail-painting and lipstick-applying and blush and concealer and eyeshadow. They'd tried eyeliner, but she had been too paranoid about poking herself in the eye to draw a straight line, let alone an attractive one, so they'd given up on that quickly.

Tonight, she doesn't bother with much. Sometimes it's fun to put in the effort—mostly when Tasha and Patterson are around to appreciate the work that goes into it—but usually she doesn't exert herself in the makeup department. All she applies now is a bit of blush so she doesn't look so pale, and red lipstick. That is something she likes: the sharp swath of red cutting across her pale face; it looks very nice contrasting with the darkness of the dress, too, she thinks, turning to the side to admire her work from another angle.

And that's what she's doing when Reade walks back in.

"Damn, Doe!" His low whistle makes her jump, and spin around. "What's the _occasion_ , prom queen?"

She opens her mouth to speak, but then she sees he isn't alone—Kurt has followed him back in—and she doesn't know why she bothered with the blush, she's certain her cheeks are flaming red and will be for the rest of the night.

"I, um, I have a dinner," she says quickly, doing her best to look at Reade and not the slack-jawed stare of Kurt. His mouth is actually open.

Which is of course something Reade notices, not bothering to hide a snigger.

"You didn't say you had a _date_ tonight," he replies, but for some reason he's looking at Kurt while he says it, and Jane frowns; she doesn't like when they tease her like this, pretending she's not here. But then Kurt blinks, coming back to himself, and she realizes what Reade's getting at. Her eyes go wide.

"No, we're not—"

She and Kurt start to speak at the same time, and then both stop, letting the other go first, and then start again, clashing together. Reade laughs at their fits and starts, and then walks over to his locker.

"All I came back for were these stupid flyers from the bar, because they'll get Zapata and I free shots," he explains, expertly undoing his lock in a matter of clicks, and then pulling the locker door open. He grabs a couple pieces of neon paper from the top shelf and then slams it again, spinning the combination. "I have to say," he continues, straightening up, "I sincerely hate shots. Hate them. But getting them free, and getting the chance to be the one to tell Zapata about _this_ …" He grins, meeting Jane's eye. "Don't worry, Doe. You don't have to get me a birthday present this year. This is more than enough."

He slaps Kurt hard on the shoulder on the way out. " _You_ , however, owe me for all your lies, boss."

A second later, Reade's gone, the door swinging closed behind him, and she and Kurt are alone. He's still standing across the room, staring at her, and she feels more self-conscious now than she ever has in all her time at the FBI. Strangers have been staring at pictures of her completely bare body for months, and yet she feels more exposed, here alone with him in this dress, than she ever has before.

Finally, he clears his throat and glances away, and she feels herself let out the breath she'd been holding.

"That's, um, that's a really nice dress," he says finally, rubbing at the back of his neck awkwardly.

Jane smiles a little, appreciating the attempt at normalcy. "Thanks," she replies. She's still holding the tube of lipstick in her hands, and she twists the base reflexively, opening and closing it like a nervous tic. "It's new."

She doesn't know why she's telling him this—why she's telling him _anything_ , or why he's still here—but silences with him are hard, now. They aren't as easy as they used to be; she now finds the need to fill them with words, which she had never felt before, in the early months. There is so much she's been keeping from him—and from the rest of the team—and she worries sometimes, that if she lets the silences go on, the truth will just end up tumbling out in the worst fashion.

"You bought it for your dinner?" he guesses, and she nods.

She doesn't exactly know what to say. She can feel her mouth going a little bit dry at all the expectation. They—her and Kurt, and her and the team—try to make a habit of behind honest with one another, and for the most part, they do so consistently. She just hasn't found a way to explain this particular truth. She knows she'll only get one chance at it, and she wants to do it right. She has to do it right. It's too important to mess up.

She's searching for the right words, her heart pounding with the effort to explain it properly, when she's saved: her cell phone alarm goes off, reminding her that she has to leave now if she wants to make the reservation, and she hurries to it, grateful again to Patterson, this time for teaching her how to set up her calendar of events. She packs up her things: the make-up, lipstick, the hanging garment bag, and all her discarded clothes from work, and pushes them into her locker. Then she takes out a small black clutch (a surprisingly stylish gift from Tasha a couple months ago), and tucks her keys, wallet, and cell phone into it. She shuts her locker and spins away the combination. She can come back for the rest of her things later tonight—or, hopefully, on Monday morning.

She starts to say goodbye to Kurt, hurrying to the door with her coat—she really can't be late, or else they won't be able to keep the reservation, and it was made _months_ ago—when he calls out her name. His voice is so quiet, it actually stops her in her tracks. She has the door half open, but she turns to him anyway.

"Yeah?" she asks.

He stares at her a moment, his eyes tracing over the rise and fall of her gown, and it's almost painful, the tender look in his eyes. That one kiss they shared outside his apartment was ages ago, almost part of another life itself, but she knows it doesn't feel so in the past to him. She grips the edge of the doorframe so hard her knuckles turn white, and braces herself for whatever's about to come.

"You look really beautiful," he says finally. "I hope—" He clears his throat. "I hope whoever you're meeting for dinner knows how lucky he is."

Jane nods her head, managing a soft smile for him. This truth, at least, she can share: "He definitely does."

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 _ **A/N**_ _: Thank you for reading!_


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N** : Part 2. :)_

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Kurt listens to the sound of Jane's heels echo across the empty twelfth floor as she makes her way from the locker room to the elevator. She doesn't ever wear heels, and he's immediately reminded of that undercover mission of theirs, all those months ago, where they'd posed as a married couple to protect federal witnesses from being exposed. She'd been dressed similarly at the time—dark, long dress; light makeup; heels—but seeing her tonight had been utterly different. That first time, the Bureau techs had helped her. They'd styled her hair and supplied the dress and covered up the tattoos and applied the make-up. But tonight, she had done everything herself: bought the dress, put on the makeup, left her tattoos uncovered. As she walked away, he'd been able to clearly see last couple letters of his first and last name tattooed on the half-bare expanse of her upper back. He wondered as he watched her go who in the world she was dating, and how on earth she and he both felt comfortable enough to be together while another man's name was permanently etched onto her skin.

He pushes the thought away once the door closes behind her—it isn't any of his business who she choses to date, or what they do together—and he means it to stay away. He means to go home, have dinner, maybe a drink, and then go to sleep. He means to do a lot of things.

But what he ends up doing, _somehow_ , is following her after she leaves the FBI.

It isn't exactly hard. A woman like her sticks out, even when she isn't dressed like she's going to some sort of celebrity gala, and it is easy to track her through the streets. Really all he has to do is follow the turning heads and the lewd comments—more than once, Kurt nearly decks a man on the street for the things he said to her, _about_ her, but he manages to hold himself in check. Not only would it blow what little cover he has, but he also knows she is more than capable of taking care of herself. If she wanted to beat the shit out of cretins on the street for accosting her, she would.

But she doesn't seem to want to. In fact, he wonders if she even hears them: she moves so quickly uptown it is almost like she's running. At first, he thinks she might be scared of the people on the street—that is most of the reason he keeps with her for so long, in case she gets into trouble—but when she reaches the restaurant and hurries through those doors, too, he knows it is because she's worried she might've lost her table. But the hostess smiles at her—Kurt can see her face through the window—and grabs a couple menus before leading her to a table on the right side of the restaurant. There is no one waiting for her yet, but she doesn't seem to mind. She looks over her menu, she sips at her water, and she waits. When the waitress comes by to introduce herself, Jane smiles at the woman, and they talk back and forth for a minute. When the waitress reappears, she comes carrying a bottle of red wine, which she promptly uncorks and pours into a glass for Jane.

As she sips at it, Kurt glances at the door, watching each man that arrives alone closely, trying to pick out which one is there to meet Jane. He can't imagine what her type is, so he keeps an eye on every one, no matter how odd a pairing they'd make. But not one of them goes toward the table on the right side of the restaurant. Five minutes pass. Ten.

When Kurt next looks at his phone, it's nearly eight-thirty, and Jane's been there for almost half an hour. She finished her first glass of wine and now has another, but she hardly even sips at this one. Kurt watches her, feeling his stomach sink a bit. She's turned away from him, away from the window, and though she might be just watching the other patrons in the restaurant—she likes to people-watch, he knows—he can't help but think that she's hiding her face from those that might pass by on the street and see her waiting in vain, alone. He feels bad for her—awful, really. She, of all people, doesn't deserve to get stood up—especially not in such a nice dress, and not when she hurried across town to be here on time. He watches for a few minutes more, really hoping now, for her sake, that every man that enters the restaurant is her date. But none of them go near her.

When she orders an appetizer and it arrives to the table, he calls it quits and decides to just go inside and keep her company. He isn't dressed right for the establishment—he thinks it might actually have a dress code, everyone looks so nice—but he doesn't care. He can't just stand there and watch her be forced to eat a dinner alone just because her date bailed, and he can't even think about going home and pretending he never saw it happen come Monday morning. He couldn't face her at work if he knew he'd left her here all by herself tonight.

"Kurt!" She jumps in her seat when he sits down across from her. "What—What are you doing here?"

He smiles, pulling the chair in. "I'm here to keep you company."

"What?" Her wide eyes flick around his face, and then somewhere over his shoulder, perhaps to the door. "No, you can't—"

But before she can say anything else, the waitress swoops in, looking just as grateful to see Kurt as Kurt imagines Jane would look had her real date shown up on time.

"So lovely you could make it," she says, taking the bottle on the table and pouring a second glass for him. "As I was saying to your girlfriend, we have some really fantastic specials tonight…"

Kurt listens politely to the waitress as she rattles them off, keeping eye contact with her continuously, mostly because he can tell Jane's about to scream at him the second he looks her way, and he wants to put that off for as long as possible. He can't blame her, really. It wasn't right of him to follow her here—she could call him a stalker and be rightful in doing so—but he doesn't regret it. He's had to spend dinners alone, too, and it's awful. It's embarrassing and it's uncomfortable, and he can imagine it's only worse for her: she bought that dress, and she did her makeup, and she nearly ran the whole way here, just to be on time for someone who didn't even bother to show up to meet her, let alone call to apologize.

"I'm sorry you got stood up," Kurt says once the waitress is gone, having given them a couple minutes to look over their menus and think about the specials. "I know how hard—"

"Kurt," she begins evenly, one fist wrapped around the stem of her wineglass, "I'm not being stood up. Now, will you please—"

"If you don't want to admit it, I get it," he interrupts easily, saving her the trouble. "I mean, trust me, I've been there; I know how crappy it feels, how embarrassing it is. It sucks. So, we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. But I can't just let you sit here and eat alone, so I thought—"

"Kurt, I'm not eating alone, I'm waiting for someone, and this dinner is _important_ ," she cuts in pointedly. "I appreciate what you're trying to do here—" Her face breaks for a second, in a mix of pity and kindness Kurt can't quite understand, and then she continues: "I really do appreciate it. It's very kind of you, Kurt. Really. But I don't need you to be kind with me right now. I need you to go, because I'm waiting on someone, and he's meeting me here, and—"

"Well, whoever you're waiting on clearly doesn't have any interest in meeting you," he points out before he can think, and she stares at him, cheeks growing red, as if he'd just hit her. Or as if she wants to hit _him_. He tries immediately to backpedal, knowing Jane isn't easily handled when she's angry, but she refuses to let him.

"I'm sorry, when did you become the expert on my love life?" she hisses angrily, leaning over the the table. "You have no idea what he is or isn't interested in! You don't even know who he is!"

"Yeah, and I think that fact speaks for itself, doesn't it?" Kurt shoots back. He's trying not to get as angry as she is, but it isn't easy. He's here, trying to do a nice thing for her, and all she wants to do is kick him aside and be miserable by herself. He knows the instinct, sure—all the more reason for her to trust him, and let him stay! He can make this better, if she'd just give him a chance to help.

"How come I've never heard of him?" he presses. He thinks of Reade, who had assumed in the locker room that Kurt was the date she'd been dressing up for. "Are you hiding him from us or something, is that it?"

"No!" Jane replies fiercely, but he can see her cheeks color further, and he knows it isn't just because of anger or embarrassment anymore—he hit the nail on the head with this one. His mind races, trying to think of why she'd feel the need to hide her date from the people she works with, her only friends. Obviously, Kurt understands why he himself is out of the loop. But the others…

"Does Patterson know about him?" he asks. "Tasha?"

Ignoring the questions, Jane snaps back, "I'm sorry, am I now contractually obligated to report all my romantic relationships to the Bureau? That's new! I didn't realize you all cared about anything that has to do with me except the tattoos on my body!"

Her words are so fierce that for a second, they stop his running mind, and break them both out of their joint circle of bitterness.

"I'm sorry," they say at the same time, and then exchange sad smiles.

"Sorry," he repeats again a moment later, looking down at the table between them. "I didn't mean to insult you. I just… Well, I saw you alone, is all. I didn't want to leave you here."

"And like I said, that's very kind of you, Kurt." He looks up at the soft tenor of her voice, and is met with a weak half-smile. "But I meant what I said when I said I was waiting for someone. I'm sure from afar I looked like I was having a miserably lonely time, pining after someone that's never going to show, but the truth is—"

"Sorry I'm late," a man's voice interrupts, and both Kurt and Jane jump in their seats, turning their heads towards the brown-haired man suddenly standing at the side of their table. He smiles at them both before his gaze settles on Jane. "I know I got the time wrong, Jane, but did I get the date wrong, too?" He hooks a thumb over his shoulder and feigns taking a step backwards. "I can go if you're busy here…"

"No, not at all," she hurries to say, a smile appearing on her face instantly, while Kurt is still stuck staring.

He doesn't know what he expected out of Jane's date, but it isn't this. Ever since he found out she was seeing someone, his mind had provided fragmented pictures of who she'd be compatible with—body-builders who could train with her or quiet, geeky guys who liked tattoos—and while none of them really fit the bill, they were all just a little _off_ , neither does this guy.

Kurt stares up at Jane's date, and he tries to figure out what it is that's so surprising: is it the look on his face (polite smile, steady eye contact); or the build of him (tall, an inch or two taller than Kurt, but not as broad); or the clothes he's wearing (a nice dark brown suit that matches his hair, a black tie that matches Jane's dress); or the fact that he doesn't seem perturbed by this situation at all (despite the fact that Kurt is sitting in his seat, crashing a dinner with his girlfriend)?

Though he knows he should probably stop staring—he should certainly stop _frowning_ ; he can hear his sister's voice in his head yelling _Don't be rude!_ —he can't quite manage to control himself. _This_ is the guy Jane's been dating? Kurt can't figure out what to think of him. When he'd seen her in that dress earlier in the locker room, he'd imagined she was off to see some sort of socialite or millionaire businessman or, at the very least, a man who dressed the way Reade did, with three-piece suits and pocket squares and expertly shined shoes. Her date's outfit is nice—more than nice, it's clear he put effort into it, just as Jane did with hers—but this guy isn't Reade. Kurt's just trying to puzzle out who in the world he is, and how in the hell he met Jane, when he realizes the conversation is still going on around him.

"No, no," Jane is saying, "of course you didn't get the date wrong. Kurt was just keeping me company while I was holding the table for us. Um—" She glances quickly between the two. "Kurt, this is Oscar; Oscar, Kurt."

"Hi." Oscar holds out a hand before Kurt can even blink, and he takes it half in a daze.

The man's shake is firm, but not pointedly so—either he doesn't know who Kurt is, or he does know and he doesn't care enough to hurt Kurt's hand over it. That surprises him more than a little bit. If he were on a date with Jane and he'd walked into the restaurant to see another man sitting in his place across from her, he might be more than a little territorial. Hell, he's territorial _now_ , and he has no reason to be. It isn't like he and Jane are anything more than coworkers who just happened to have kissed, once, over half a year ago now. If asked, he would probably explain away his presence by saying he's protective about his team and wary of the people they fraternize with—after all, Patterson's last serious relationship ended in murder—but he knows that when push comes to shove, he wouldn't care this much about Patterson's or Tasha's dates. He wouldn't be this curious, this interested, about who they choose to spend their time with. He certainly wouldn't stop to think when one of their dates offered, as Jane's is offering now, that he should feel free to join them for dinner if he likes. And he absolutely would _not_ have to stop himself from accepting such an invitation.

"Of course we could grab another chair," Oscar is saying, and it's then that Kurt realizes he's still sitting in his chair, that he's still _here,_ and that he needs to leave right now. He thought he'd been protecting Jane from being hurt—that instinct, after all, is second-nature to him—but it is very clear now that by trying to humor her out of her bad situation, he'd only made an idiot out of himself.

 _She_ had been the one humoring him, he realizes now, not the other way around. She hadn't been stood up, she hadn't been lonely, she hadn't even been waiting alone, really. She knew her date would be coming late, and she'd been holding the table by drinking and eating by herself. So long as she was a paying customer, they couldn't very well kick her out.

Kurt shoves his chair back so fast it almost topples over, but somehow he manages to grab it at the last second before it falls—he thanks Quantico for his reflexes—and then he rights it, quickly stepping back.

"Sorry," he says, glancing quickly between Jane and Oscar, gesturing to the chair. "Hadn't meant to take your place."

"No, it's fine," Oscar replies easily. He doesn't make a move to sit down immediately, and for a second, they're both standing there on opposite sides of the table, staring at each other, neither moving, until Jane clears her throat loudly.

"So I'll see you at work on Monday, right, Kurt?"

Her voice jerks him back to reality, and he nods quickly at the pointed dismissal, grateful for it. Without it, he might've stood there all night, trying to figure this mystery out. "Right. Right, see you at work. Um—have a good night. Nice meeting you." He nods briefly to Oscar, who nods back, and then he turns to the door, doing his best not to run across the restaurant.

It's cold outside, but he's grateful for the chill; he can feel the latent embarrassment hitting him like a sunburn, and the second he's outside, he brings a hand to his head, covering his eyes. _Idiot, idiot, idiot,_ his mind chants at him, and at the moment, he doesn't even feel the need to correct it. How was he actually stupid enough to think that anyone who'd invite Jane to dinner wouldn't also make the effort to show up? And how had he been so presumptuous as to take a seat across from her, as if he were meant to be there? As if she had wanted to go out with _him_?

He pinches the bridge of his nose, hard. He needs a drink. Or ten. Or some of that ZIP in her bloodstream—anything to erase this embarrassment from his mind.

After a couple seconds, he manages to gather himself. He crosses the street to head downtown, back the way he'd come. He tells himself not to, but he can't help it—just before he turns the corner, he looks back at the restaurant one last time.

They aren't hard to spot. Despite all the other couples surrounding them, in various bits of expensive finery, the two of them stick out. Maybe it's the dark, matching coloring of their clothes; maybe it's because they're the only two Kurt actually knows to look for. But as he stands and stares and doesn't look away, he knows it's more than that. They don't draw the eye exactly, but they certainly hold it: with the animated way they talk to each other, the carefree way they seem to tease one another, the kind way they look at each other.

From afar, Kurt watches Jane bury her face in her hands, and then come up a moment later, shaking her head with a smile. Across from her, Oscar is gesturing with his hands, laughing about something. Probably _me_ , Kurt realizes, and the embarrassment floods him again so acutely he has to look down. They'll probably laugh about his idiotic attempt at chivalry all night.

Though, he supposes on second thought, glancing back up again, that's better than the two of them being angry about it, or Oscar being angry with Jane about it. Though he doesn't exactly seem to be the type.

Even from here, all the way across the street, Kurt can easily to see how well they get along. You'd have to be blind not to notice that, and as he watches them, Kurt wonders just how long he _has_ been blind to this. Jane had said this dinner was an important one—was it an anniversary of some kind? Could that be possible? She hasn't even been back in the world a full year yet…

But she's found someone. Somehow, against all the odds of her disappearance and reappearance and in the wake of all that trauma and memory loss… She found someone that makes her laugh and smile and makes her want to run halfway across town in heels just to save a table for dinner.

Kurt turns away from them, and starts back toward downtown. All he allows himself to consciously think as he goes is that he hopes the guy's worthy of it: of her attention, excitement, and happiness. Of her smile and her laugh and her trust. The rest of the thoughts moving through his head, admittedly, are less than charitable.

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 _ **A/N** : Thank you for reading! Feel free to share your thoughts if you have some. :)_


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N** : Thank you all so much for your reviews on the last chapter! I'm so happy you enjoyed it, and I hope you like this one as well. :)_

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"'Of course we could grab another chair,'" Jane mimics the moment Kurt is out the door. "Are you kidding me?" she hisses at Oscar, sticking her head over the table and just barely holding back from kicking him underneath it. "What's wrong with you?"

"What? I was being polite!"

"I didn't want him to join us!"

"Why not?"

"Why _not_?" She is leaning so far forward she's nearly out of her chair, and he has to cough quickly into his hand to hide a smile. "Are you kidding me, Oscar? _Why not_?"

He feigns ignorance with a careful shrug, pressing his lips together hard to keep that smile back. "What?" he wonders innocently, reaching a hand out for his wineglass. "Is tonight a special night or something?"

For a second, her face goes slack and she looks like she's about to yell at him. But when he cracks, grinning, she scowls and turns away.

"Jerk," she mutters under her breath.

He can't hide the grin. "Just testing your memory."

Her scowl grows, and she reaches forward for her own wine. "Be thankful I'm not going to douse you in this," she mutters, and then picks up the glass to take a deep swallow. A moment later she sets it back down again, and then starts shaking her head. She can't believe what she just witnessed. What she was a _part_ of. She cannot believe that Kurt was _here_ , that he followed her here, that Oscar showed up out of the blue at the worst (or had it been best?) possible moment, and that they'd met face-to-face like that, with no warning or time to adjust or room to explain. She lifts her hands to her face, covering what she knows must be flaming cheeks. But when she surfaces again, she's laughing.

"God. I can't believe that just happened. I don't even…" She shakes her head, meeting Oscar's amused eye across from her. "I don't even know what to say. I don't know what excuse to give you. I… I have no words. Honestly, I have no words."

He smiles across from her, holding up his hands. "Hey, it happens. No excuse necessary."

"It _happens_?" She laughs, settling back into her chair. "Right, like people crash other people's dates like that all the time. Totally normal. Completely acceptable. Not at all a cause for concern."

"Hey…" He picks up his wineglass with a smirk tugging at one edge of his mouth. "When you see an opening, you've gotta swoop in."

"Oh, shut up," she mutters, but he catches a flicker of her smile, and he smiles, too.

"Can't blame the guy. Besides," he adds, setting his glass back down. "It could've been worse."

"Worse?" Jane raises her eyebrows in doubt. "Really? How could it have been _worse,_ Oscar?"

"Well, he could've brought his whole posse with him. Then they _all_ would've had to meet me. There'd be handshakes all around, 'Who are you?'s, maybe even small talk..." He pretends to shudder. "Sound like _hell_ , am I right?"

She shakes her head, looking pointedly away, out into the restaurant. She knows what he's getting at—he's been pushing for them to come forward to her friends about their relationship for a while now—but she doesn't want to get into it tonight. She just wants them to have a nice dinner together, to commemorate what they're here to commemorate, and to enjoy themselves in peace. When she looks back over, though, he's still waiting expectantly for an answer. She sighs. Carefully, she reaches a hand across the table, palm up. He takes it dutifully in his.

"Can't we just celebrate, please?" she asks quietly. "It's been six months and… And everything's going well. You and I are doing good, the team is working through the cases, the world isn't crumbling around us—or at least, not as much as it would be otherwise—" He laughs a bit at that, and she squeezes his hand. "I am happy," she says, growing serious once more. "I am happy, and I am happy that _we_ are happy. I am happy that we're together. Can we just focus on that? On how lucky we are, to have found each other again, and made it this far?"

He regards her for a moment after her speech is finished, propping his chin up with a bent elbow resting on the table. When he doesn't immediately reply, she tilts her head. "What?" she demands, drawing out the word with a frown. She knows to be suspicious of that thoughtful look on his face.

"Nothing, nothing." He smiles. "It's just…" He rubs his thumb against the back of her hand for a moment. "You're awfully good at getting yourself out of tight situations, aren't you? You always end up with exactly what you want and nothing you don't. You win, every time."

She shrugs one shoulder, casual as can be. "Hey. What were all those years of training for?"

He laughs at that, letting go of her hand, just as the waitress comes to their table once more. She does a double-take at the new guest—Jane attempts to will her cheeks not to pink further—but quickly recovers herself. They hear the specials again, and look over their menus. For the rest of the meal, they put aside the mix-up, and Kurt, and the team, and they talk about other things. The night passes slowly, and Jane relishes every moment of it.

Later, once the dinner plates have been cleared away, and they're left with the dessert menus and the last of their wine, Oscar straightens in his chair and reaches across the table and takes her hand. She looks up in surprise; she'd been studying the menu closely and his touch took her momentarily off-guard. She smiles quickly, and squeezes his fingers gently with hers. She waits a second, two, but he doesn't say anything. She offers an encouraging smile, but still, he demurs. She lets him go, and turns back to the menu. His hand slips out of hers, and for a few minutes, there's silence between them.

When she next looks up, he's placed a small, flat jewelry box, about two inches square, on the table between them. She stares, lips parting, but no words come out. She knows anniversaries, like birthdays, are a time for gifts: expressions of love and caring and happiness. But she hadn't expected to receive something like this. She stares at the little box, trying once more to speak.

Finally, when it's clear she can't, he clears his throat quietly.

"I got you something."

His voice is very soft, and if he weren't sitting mere feet from her, she likely wouldn't have been able to hear him over the low hum of diners and louder conversation in the restaurant around them. She actually thinks in that moment that she _wishes_ she couldn't hear him. She feels like she needs more time to prepare. But then the words are tumbling out.

"You got me something?"

He nods, a little smile pulling at the edges of his lips. "Mmhm."

"What…" She licks her lips. Her heart is beating a little bit painfully now. She thinks of her own gift for him, tucked away back at home, and she knows it can't be anywhere near as nice as whatever he's gotten her. Maybe she should've talked with Patterson or Tasha before she'd decided on a gift for him. She should've sought advice, and not trusted her own simple-mindedness. She should've spent money on him, like he clearly spent on her. "You didn't have to…" she whispers, trailing off. She can't stop staring at the box he's offering her. She wonders if she can manufacture a reason to be alone for an hour or two tonight, so she can search for a better gift to match what he bought for her.

He smiles gently at the anxious look in her eyes, misreading it. "Don't worry," he says, squeezing her hand. "It isn't a diamond or anything like that."

He pulls away then, and leaves her with the box. After a moment of hesitation, she reaches for it. She runs her fingers over the soft covering—it's a lovely, faded purple velvet. Even the box the gift comes in is beautiful, she thinks, trying valiantly to banish thoughts of her silly gift for him from her mind. She opens the box.

For a few seconds she just stares at the silver necklace nestled within, not at all knowing what to say. It is strung on a simple, thin chain, and features a single charm: a circular medallion, about an inch and a half wide, that has been carefully etched with a series of cursive letters set in concentric circles. She reaches out a tentative hand to rub her fingertips over the surface of the medallion, curious. Her finger travels from the center circle outwards, puzzling over the indentations for a moment. It takes a few seconds for it to click: _MA, NY, MD, RI, CT, DE, NH, NC, SC, NJ, PA, GA._

Her head shoots up, a smile of recognition blooming on her face as she realizes what it is, and where it came from.

Across from her, Oscar's smiling too, clearly pleased she's figured it out.

"You remember the other month, when we were walking downtown?" he says. "We passed that antiques store and you stopped and stared at this one, because you said it reminded you of the tattoo on your hip. You said—"

"'I don't wear jewelry, but I'd wear that.'" She smiles, nodding along, "Yes, I remember." She tears her eyes away from the necklace and finds his eye. "And you remembered too?"

She can't keep the note of admiration out of her voice, and he nods, a soft smile turning up the edges of his mouth as he watches her look down again, and pick up the necklace from the box, holding it aloft, so she can examine the medallion more closely. She swirls a finger around the outer edge, skimming over the initials of the original thirteen colonies that are carved into the medal in a continuing circle—much like the set tattooed on her left hip, one of only a few tattoos she'd once told him she actually likes having on her body.

"Why this, though?" she wonders, still inspecting the necklace. "I mean, I know I said I liked it, but what made you think of it again? We passed that store months ago."

"Well, in all honesty…" He leans back in his chair, scratching at the side of his head. "I went back and bought it the next day."

"You didn't." Her eyes light up at the mention, and when he shrugs, guilty, she laughs. "Why didn't you give it to me earlier, then? If you've had it all this time?"

"Well, I wanted to wait for a special occasion. Your birthday had already passed, so I missed that opportunity. I kept waiting, but nothing seemed good enough… Then we planned this dinner, and I figured, hey, why not? Six-month anniversary is as good as anything." He glances down at the table, and she scoots forward a little in her seat when she watches his face fall. She starts to say his name, to ask what's wrong, but he shakes his head, needing to get this out first.

"Jane, I know you say the tattoos don't bother you, and I believe you, I do, but… Sometimes I hate it, knowing what you had to go through for this. I watched them tattoo every inch of you; for weeks I watched, and it was awful, and yet I can only imagine how much worse it was for you, how painful it was for you, and what it's like for you to live with now. I know I would never have been able to go through that myself. But you… Jane, if you can somehow find even the smallest enjoyment from them…" He looks up, first at the necklace in her hands, then into her eyes. "Well, I figured, why not commemorate that, too? It's as important as everything else we're celebrating—more important, really."

She offers him a small smile, nodding her head in appreciation of the thought behind the gift. Then she reaches for the clasp of the necklace and undos it, reaching behind her neck to fasten it closed. A second later, the necklace has fallen perfectly to the middle of her chest, but she can't resist reaching down to lift the medallion up again, in order to examine it once more. It truly is a beautiful bit of craftsmanship. At certain points, the different letters wrought into the silver expand their boundaries, and tangle up with their neighbors. While the cursive is intricate and compact, the busts and trails of the different letters spread outward, linking one colony to the next until they are inseparable. With a careful finger, as if worried the gift might break if touched too firmly, Jane traces a path from the starting _M_ in the middlemost circle to the ending _A_ in the outer circle _._ When she completes the circuit without once having to lift her finger to touch one line to the next, she smiles widely.

"Also, there's something else…"

At the sound of Oscar's voice, she lets go of the necklace, and looks up. She's surprised to catch him shifting in his chair, glancing away.

"I thought maybe…" He clears his throat, buying time, and then finally lifts his head to meet her eyes. "You know, you've hardly left New York, Jane. I thought maybe—if you wanted, that is—we could take a trip or something, up and down the coast. Get a look at what the colonies turned into, you know. Or—we could go west. Or south. Wherever you want. I just feel like you should see the country. And since you're a salaried employee now, you get vacation time…" He trails off, looking down again. "It's just an idea," he adds quietly, when she doesn't immediately say anything.

She watches him as he toys with the silverware left on the table—a spoon for dessert—and smiles to herself. It's been half a year they've been together now (not counting all the years before the memory wipe), and she still hasn't gotten sick of this: how he can still be, at turns, as bumbling and as nervous with this relationship business as she is.

She lifts a hand to the medallion, rubbing her thumb over the inscribed surface as if for good luck.

"It's a very good idea," she tells him, and she smiles at the way his head jerks up, equal parts disbelieving and eager.

"Yeah? You think so?"

"Yeah, of course; I'd love to go on a trip with you. I mean, we've never been on…" She starts to say, only to realize she's probably wrong.

He chuckles, following her train of thought. "A few times, actually," he says to her unasked question. "In fact—" He shakes his head, laughing at some private memory. "—we took a rather interesting one a number of years ago…"

"Oh, yeah?" She leans forward, eager as always to hear stories from their past. "What was interesting? What happened?"

"How about I tell you when we're on the road? It's isn't exactly… appropriate for this setting."

"It's _not,_ huh?" Her eyes light up with mischief. "Well then, I'm doubly intrigued. But fine," she agrees, backing off, "we'll save story time for the road. But, we better start planning, because I want to know. So, since you're the one with all the experience, you tell me: Where should we go first?"

* * *

 _ **A/N** : Thank you for reading! I would love to hear your thoughts if you have any. :)_

 _ **PS** \- You ain't seen the last of K. Weller. :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N to guest Jojo** : Thank you for your review! Very glad you liked the necklace idea, and so happy you're excited about the road trip—I may have to actually write a fic about that. :) And I appreciate your interest in them traveling to where Oscar grew up—that's another idea I've been kicking around; I really want to write him taking her back to Chicago. :) Hope you enjoy this chapter too!_

* * *

"Hey, boss! What in the hell are you doing here?"

Tasha greets him from across the bar before he's even gotten his ID back from the bouncer, and briefly he thinks of turning right around and walking back out. But going home alone back to his empty apartment after seeing Jane seems a little too bleak for a Friday night. Before Reade left work earlier, he'd mentioned the bar he was meeting Zapata at, and Kurt figured, why not. He's trying not to go back on that now.

"Hey," he says, meeting Zapata at the corner of the bar, where she and Reade are camped out. "Got any of those free shots left?"

Tasha grins, a little too wide. Clearly she had most of them. "Nope. But I _will_ buy you your first drink if you tell me just how badly your _da-ate_ went."

He shakes his head at her sing-song, shouldering past her to flag down the bartender. "I'll buy my own, thanks."

"What's it been, an hour, hour and a half, since we left work?" Reade muses, as the bartender pours Kurt a whiskey, which he promptly downs in one go, and then passes back to the bartender for a second. "How'd you screw it up so fast?"

"It's _Jane_ ," Tasha adds, watching with bemusement as Kurt knocks back the second. "Sweet, heart-of-gold Jane. I don't see how you could've possibly had a bad date with her—unless you tried to propose or something." She laughs at her own joke, but then when he doesn't answer, the smile falls off her face and she presses, " _Weller_? Please tell me you didn't propose. Please tell me you're not so stupid as to—"

"Didn't propose," he gets out, feeling a bit better now that he's got a good amount of alcohol in his system. He shrugs a yes— _Eh, why not?_ —when the bartender offers a third.

"Well, then what happened?" Reade asks, after grabbing a refill of his own drink. "How could the date have gone so bad that you ran over here—"

"Wasn't my date, that's how," he answers curtly.

"Wasn't your date?" Tasha blinks in confusion, and Reade, on his other side, is quick to follow up: "What do you mean, it wasn't your date? I saw her in that dress in the locker room—"

"Yeah, and I told you it wasn't me she was going out with," Kurt answers, pushing his chair back. He grabs his drink and takes it with him, heading to one of the open tables in the back of the bar, Tasha and Reade on his heels. Just as he sits down, he spots Patterson's blonde head coming out of the bathroom, but he manages to hold in the groan that threatens to surface. He supposes it's better to do this all at once: get all the embarrassment out of the way in one go, so he doesn't have to tell the same story over and over and over again.

So once she sits down, and the situation is recapped for her, he does. He lays it all out, mostly just so he'll stop obsessing over it in his own head.

Tasha is barely holding in a laughing fit by the time he finishes. "Aw, Kurt… You really are the quintessential _Nice Guy_ , aren't you?"

"Shut up, Zapata."

"I think it's sweet!" Patterson defends. "You were trying to keep her company, that's—"

" _Nice_?" Tasha supplies pointedly, to which the blonde rolls her eyes and turns back to her drink. Tasha faces Kurt again. "Unfortunately, boss, as you may now know, the Nice Guy attitude, complete with the noble intentions starter pack, will get you nowhere. You gotta make moves, take action." She grins, "Which, by the way, I'm surprised the boyfriend didn't to you—I can't believe you were sitting in his seat, trying to steal his date! He should've punched you."

"I thought she was alone!"

"After she repeatedly told you she wasn't?" Reade puts in dryly.

Kurt glares at him—Reade, for once, he had expected to stay on his side. But of course now they're all ganging up. He should never have started this conversation in the first place. He should never have followed Jane from the FBI. He should've minded his own business.

"I thought she was just trying to save face," Kurt says, attempting to do the same himself. " You know how Jane can get about things… It was an honest mistake," he mutters.

"One that you hoped would culminate with you guys naked in your bed, right?" Tasha goads.

Kurt doesn't even bother dignifying that with a response; he shoves himself to his feet, muttering something about needing the bathroom. He can hear the rest of the team's voices rising behind him as they argue, but he blocks them out. Even if it is humiliating to have them pick apart his own stupid mistakes in front of him, he's relieved at least they're here. Somehow, he feels a little less pathetic with them surrounding him. Even if he does need a break now and again from their circus.

"So what was he like?" Patterson asks eagerly when he gets back from the bathroom. "The boyfriend?" she adds, as if the question needed clarifying. "You barely said anything about him except that he showed up."

Kurt shrugs, dropping back into his seat. "He was fine. I don't know. Polite." At the blank stares he receives from Tasha and Patterson, he replies defensively, "What?"

At his side, Reade sighs. "I think they want to know what he _looked_ like, Weller."

"Oh. Uh…" He thinks back. "I don't know." He gestures vaguely at his head. "Lots of hair. Brown hair. He was thin, I guess." He thinks a minute more. "Tall," he adds, decisively. "He was tall."

"Tall," Patterson repeats dully, her shoulders slumping in disappointment. "That's _all_ you have to say about him?"

"I was crashing his date; it's not like I had time to ask him about his life story, Patterson!"

"You're an FBI agent, aren't you?" Tasha cuts in. "You should know how to describe a human male's distinctive features!"

"I wasn't arresting him, Tasha!"

"All right, fine!" Patterson throws up her hands. "Forget how he looks, how did he act? How did he talk? Was he rude to you? Rude to Jane?"

Kurt raises his eyebrows. "Was he _rude_ to the woman he was on a date with? Seriously, Patterson?"

"Well, I don't know what sort of people Jane's getting involved with!" Patterson replies defensively. "I mean, of course I hope she's found someone nice. But you know as well as the rest of us that she doesn't have the most experience…"

Kurt remembers the way they'd joked together at the restaurant, Jane and her boyfriend. _I can go if you're busy_ … The way he hadn't made a fuss, hadn't even batted an eye, at someone else's presence while he should be alone on a date with his girlfriend.

"I don't think you have to worry about that," Kurt tells Patterson. "He seemed nice. Him and Jane got along really well."

" _Ooh_ ," Tasha leers across the table. "How well is _really well_?"

Reade saves him from having to reprimand her: "Weller interrupted them at a restaurant, not in bed, Tasha. Get your head out of the gutter."

"But that's where my head's most at home!" Tasha pretends to pout, to which Reade rolls his eyes and mutters further insults under his breath.

"Wait, do you think…" Patterson pauses to share a glance with each of them, lowering her voice as she does so. "Do you guys think she's having sex with him?"

"What, right now?"

"No, not _right now_ , I mean… in general." She looks around the table. "Do you think she's had sex yet? You know—since whenever the last time was, before the wipe?"

Tasha looks thoughtful, as if considering the question seriously, but Reade leans back with a shake of his head, edging away from the group as if trying to put physical distance between him and the intimate question. "Guys, I really don't want to be talking about Jane's sex life. Especially when she's not here. That's not… not appropriate."

"Seconded," Kurt adds quickly, grateful Reade spoke of it first.

"It's just an innocent question," Patterson defends herself. "I meant no harm in it—"

"No, they're right." Everyone stops and stares when Tasha chimes in. "What?" she demands of the three pairs of eyes now locked on her. "Reade and Kurt are right. We shouldn't be talking about Jane's sex life without Jane present—"

"Thank you!" Reade calls, slapping a commending hand on the table. "Finally, Zapata growing up, showing some sense!" He turns to the blonde on her left. "Patterson, I can't believe I'm saying this, but you should take a note from—" Reade breaks off when Tasha pulls out her phone and starts dialing. He frowns, "Zapata, who are you—"

"You were right," she smiles, pressing the phone to her ear. "It isn't nice to talk about Jane behind her back. So why don't we call her—"

" _Zapata, no_."

"—and she can answer all our burning questions!" She grins at the look of furious disbelief on Reade and Kurt's faces. "C'mon, Weller," she smiles. "I know you wanna know what's really going on between them. And Reade—you are _always_ begging to meet all of my boyfriends; I know you want to meet Jane's too. And Patterson—" She breaks off, swearing when the voicemail picks up. "Oh, come on, Jane!" She presses the speaker button, and then holds the phone in front of her face.

"Jane!" she yells. "We're at Murphy's! Weller told us you've got a hot date tonight but won't give us any details—all I know is he's tall and he's got a lot of hair; we wanna see the rest of him, so you have to bring him by! Plus, Patterson wants know if you guys are fucking yet, so if—"

"I didn't use that word!" Patterson protests shrilly.

Tasha rolls her eyes. "Fine, Patterson wants to know if you two are making _sweet, tender love_ —"

"Tasha, SHUT UP!"

It comes from all directions, as three separate hands reach out to wrestle her phone from her, but she just grins, holding on tight.

"Bring the boyfriend by!" she yells over her coworkers. "I'm sure you can't tell from the ruckus, but we're all really excited to meet him and judge him really, really hard!"

Finally, Patterson manages to wrench the phone from Tasha's grip, but it hardly matters—the voicemail is finished, the line's disconnected, and there's nothing to do now. For a silent minute, they all sit and glare at Tasha while she sips triumphantly at her drink.

Eventually, Reade speaks.

"You are such an asshole, Tasha."

"Oh, sure," she allows with a winning smile. "But answer me this: What would you do for fun if I wasn't around?"


End file.
